By: Sadruddin Noorani, Chicago, USA
In what ways do we think of God? As the Creator? The Sustainer? As one who is deep within our very being or as some force that is somewhere out there in the universe (or beyond), distant from us and separate from our bodies? Do we think of Him by His proper name, Allah, or through his attributes such as “The Most Merciful” and “The Most Compassionate”? And in what ways do we understand Allah’s relationship with the Prophet, the Imams and ourselves?
The Holy Qur’an speaks about Allah in many ways. One of these is through the Asma’ ul-Husna, Allah’s 99 Beautiful Names. While each of these attempts to describe the essential qualities of Allah, He is not confined to anyone. Rather, He encompasses all of them. He is al-Mu’izz, the Bestower of Honors, but also its opposite, Al-Mudhill, the Humiliator. To deny Allah any attribute, would be to deny Him His God-ness, His ability to be or do anything. In Surah-e Nur – Allah describes Himself as the Light of the Heavens and the Earth. It is up to us, however, how we conceive of that Light. No single metaphor or image can contain the Divine, and yet, we are only able to think of God only through language.
Our beloved 48th Imam, Mawlana Sultan Mahomed Shah (a.s.) (Aga Khan lll) often reflected upon The Divine Station. He once wrote:
“A great deal of the Qur’an is taken up with God’s intimate presence in the world, with the importance of each human being’s relations with the Creator; but only in one chapter – the chapter on Light – is the nature of the divinity referred to in a very clear form…. the consequence of the light as seen in the universe, is the nearest we can imagine or hope to believe about the person of our Creator.”
For many of us, it is difficult to think of Allah or Ahad, Rabb, or Rahman in ways other than as a concept. The Divine may not be something ever-present or real in our lives, not a force that we feel except in times of distress and sadness, or when we experience something majestic and beautiful. At those moments, we are so overcome by emotion that the depth and force of those feelings remind us that there is something that exists beyond ourselves. For those of us who are fortunate, we are also able to sense and feel the Divine Presence when we pray. It is then, in those moments of intense intimacy, that we are alone with the Rabb al-‘Alameen, the Force-that-Animates-the-World. The Qur’an reminds us that God is closer to us than our jugular vein and that we can know Him through His ayat, or signs, a word also used to describe the units and building blocks of the Qur’an.
In another place, our beloved 48th imam writes again about God:
“Imam Hasan has explained the Islamic doctrine of God and the Universe by analogy with the Sun and its reflection in the pool of a fountain; there is certainly a reflection or image of the Sun, but …..how small and pale is the likeness… Allah is the Sun; and the Universe, as we know it in all its magnitude, and time, with its power, are nothing more than the reflection of the Absolute in the mirror of the fountain.” The Memoirs of Aga Khan, p 175
We too are also part of that universe, but how we understand our place within it is no easy task.
Fortunately, we have as guides, Allah’s Revelation through the Qur’an, the hadiths and sunnah of our Prophet and farmans and lived/living examples of 49 generations of Imams. Our da’is and pirs and many others have tried to capture this relationship through words and poetry. While it is through the intellect and through our feelings that we try to understand ourselves and our Creator, it is through the faculties of our imagination that we are able to put these thoughts into words.
When we realize that Allah is with us at all times and not only when we are conscious of it; when we truly recognize that He is in every breath, we open ourselves to seeing Him all around us. Today, let us attempt to be more intentional, more deliberate about how we think about our relationship with the Divine. What universe do we paint in our minds as we think about our relationship to Him?
The Breath of the Creator
The Holy Qur’an makes Allah known to us through His attributes and signs as well as the metaphors which might help us to imagine Him, such as the concept of light.
Another metaphor that might help us to think of the presence and nature of God in our lives is that of breath. In the Biblical and Qur’anic stories of creation, God not only creates the first humans from clay, but He also breathes His Spirit into them and in doing so, gives them life. As descendants of Adam and Hawa (Eve), God’s touch is visible in each of us through His fashioning of our bodies. Though God’s presence is invisible, naked to our own eyes and to the eyes of others, it is felt through the very ruh (soul) or breath that runs through each and every one of us.
Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi begins his epic poem, the Mathnawi, with the example of a ney, or reed-flute separated from its origins. The sound of its intense longing for its home is brought alive through the breath that passes through the instrument as it is played. It is a sound which is immediately recognizable, at once breathy and full of despair and sadness. Some interpret this human action as one that mirrors the breath of the Creator blowing into the hallow of our human bodies. For our own breath too pales in comparison to the Original Breath of the Divine that we all long to feel once again.
For some of us, that reminder of the Divine within us takes place when we recite zikr or Ism-e-Azam. When calling upon the Divine, we are reuniting God’s Names with the Breath that originated in Him. Many Sufi groups, when they practice zikr also pay close attention to their breathing. There is no single way to meditate or perform zikr. Some, however, inhale through one nostril, and take in deeply the air that surrounds them, letting it circulate through their bodies, before exhaling through the other nostril. In this way, the name of God which is recited at the same time as one controls their breath, touches every inch of one’s internal being. When we are aware of our breathing, we are aware of our Creator. For it is in these moments we are present in the world – and not lost in its past or its future.
This quest – to rediscover, to realize and reaffirm the Divine within us – is beautifully played out in Farid al-Din Attar’s masterful story, The Conference of the Birds. Here, thirty birds go searching for their Bird-King, the Simurgh. After passing through seven valleys, they reach the mountain-cave where he lives. But upon seeing him and gazing at his face, they see only themselves, as if in a mirror. The Calling to Allah and the Quest
For many of us, our journey to find our Creator is not one that requires us to leave our physical homes, but rather the comfort and stability of the models by which we see ourselves and our world. We must endeavor to slowly lift the veils that are deep within us, in the hopes of revealing who we truly are. This journey is not always linear. More often than not, it is akin to a dance; one that is often confusing, that raises questions, that challenges us. For it is a dance which reminds us of the relationship of ourselves to ourself… But gradually, as the veils of separation begin to flutter, many of us will, inshallah, discover the luminous center of our own nature, something that Zen Buddhist masters often call, “the face before I was born.”
Let us aim to be more aware of the Divine within our lives and within ourselves. Let us also not forget the Divine presence that exists within others and try to seek ways to nurture this.
God Manifesting Himself in the Qur’an
We have been thinking about another metaphor by which to think about the Divine presence in our lives; that of breath. This Spirit, or ruh, is a force which gives us life but which also has the potential to reveal with it the majesty within each and every one of us. Embarking on this journey to discover ourselves and our Creator is not an easy task. It brings with it many questions. One tool on that journey is zikr, which positions us to be ever-present and to acknowledge the Divine presence within us.
We are also reminded of the Divine Reality in the Holy Qur’an which Allah chose to reveal to His beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family). For the Qur’an too is a testament to Allah’s presence in our lives. Despite entering the axis of history more than 14 centuries ago in Arabia in the 7th century, the Qur’an is a text that speaks to all times and people. Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq (a.s.) was once asked, “Why does the Qur’an, despite the coming of new and passing of [old generations], only increase in its freshness?” The Imam replied, “Because God did not make it for one specific time or one specific people, so it is new in every age, fresh for every people, until the Day of Judgment.”
The Qur’an, however, is not just pertinent and timely in its message. It is also relevant because it is through the Qur’an through which Allah speaks to us directly. On another occasion, Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq was praying and was seen reciting verses from the Holy Book, when he suddenly fell unconscious. Upon arising from his state sometime later, someone asked the Imam what had happened to him. To this, he replied, “I was engrossed in recitation of the verses from the Holy Qur’an when suddenly I felt as though I was hearing them directly from the One who was revealing it.”
It is this awe-inspiring sense of the Qur’an, of God being present in the written Word, that we often overlook when we think of the Qur’an simply in intellectual terms, as a proof text or a reference tool. In reading and reciting the Qur’an as a prayer, we are made aware of the presence of God in its every word. As we reproduce the sounds and words that Allah spoke to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) through his angel Gabriel, we bring out those very phrases and sentences from the deepest chambers of our inner being. We are vocalizing a divinely inspired impulse that links us, albeit as a pale shadow, to the experience of the Prophet. When we want God to communicate with us, we can recite the Qur’an. When we feel abandoned and alone, we can listen to God’s words that are preserved within His Holy Book. Many people who recite or listen to the Qur’an on a daily basis, remark about that experience, that sense they have whereby Allah moves within its Words and speaks to them directly.
When God reveals Himself to us in this way, it is often referred to in Arabic as tajalli [pronounced: tuj-Ali]. Tajalli means disclosing or manifesting oneself. It is opening up one to the transcendence of the Divine in our lives such that we can feel God’s presence within and around us. The Qur’an also speaks of this idea of tajalli in the first two verses of Surat al-Layl, The Chapter of the Night, where it describes how the night hides or encloses darkness within itself and how the day makes things appear. For with the day, appears the sun, which bathes everything in light and illuminates everything in its wake and allows us to see. The day and that light are inseparable, as is darkness and night. In and of themselves, through what they reveal and what they hide, we learn what nights and days truly are.
In (the) Nahj al-Balagha, Mawlana Ali (a.s.) tells us that God not only manifests Himself in the Qur’an, but also manifests Himself to His Creation through His Creation. In this way, each of us, as God’s creatures, are manifestations of the Divine. If the entire cosmos is a tajalli of the Divine, then we too participate in that manifestation. We are a kind of Revelation by virtue of our existence. A way by which God reveals Himself.
This is why it is important to treat ourselves and our fellow human beings with the respect and attitude that carries the spark of the Divine demands. Let us also try to read, recite, and understand God’s message and words to His creation preserved in the Qur’an, so that through both manifestations of the Divine, we may truly experience Him in our lives. Ameen.
Ismailimail 